Officers in Baltimore are asked to discuss cases of police misconduct in terms of Plato’s tripartite model of the soul.
Photograph: Baltimore Sun/TNS via Getty Images

Police officers in Baltimore have been making novel use of their notebooks. Anything Plato has said may be taken down and used, not as evidence against him, but in the classroom, where detective Ed Gillespie has made the ancient Greek philosopher part of the force’s annual in-service training. Gillespie gets his students to discuss cases of police misconduct in terms of Plato’s tripartite model of the soul, which holds that our behaviour is governed, at times, by either the intellect, the “spirit” or the “appetites”.

Any further education would be a good thing, since research shows that the more educated officers are, the less likely they are to use force. But philosophy has more valuable insights to offer. Here are some suggestions for what should be on any police department’s reading list.

Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard

If you want to understand why “I was just following orders” is never a good enough excuse, consider Abraham, told to sacrifice his own son by the supreme law enforcer, God almighty. Far from shrugging his shoulders and picking up the knife, Kierkegaard shows Abraham rightly questioning whether there is an absolute duty to obey God. Surely we can then ask if there is absolute duty to obey our chiefs of police?

The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle

Laws are all very well, but you need to be of good character to want to follow them and have the wisdom to interpret them fairly. The good police officer therefore needs phronēsis – practical wisdom – and this book will help them to develop it.

A Question of Trust by Onora O’Neill

Policing by consent is the principle of UK law enforcement. If the police force wishes to understand how it can retain, and in some cases rebuild, trust, Onora O’Neill’s lucid and insightful Reith lectures are a good place to look. She argues that audits, transparency and procedures only go so far. If you want to be trusted, the most important thing is that you are, in fact, trustworthy.

On the Genealogy of Morals by Freidrich Nietzsche

A police officer with fantasies of being Superman is the last thing we need, but there is much more to Nietzsche than the misunderstood Übermensch. There is no more powerful licence to abuse power than to believe you are on the right side of a neat divide between good and evil. Far better to realise that we are all merely doing better or worse at making life go well for ourselves and others.

The Analects by Confucius

By reading more than just western philosophy, the police could gain greater awareness of cultural diversity than most academic philosophers. The Analects is a good reminder not only that different cultures have different core values, but that using the force of the law is always a last resort. “I could try a civil suit as well as anyone,” said Confucius. “But better still to bring it about that there were no civil suits!”